


Funeral

by will_o_whisper



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Androids, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/will_o_whisper/pseuds/will_o_whisper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Nuclear Option. The sole survivor takes a moment to gather her thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funeral

The fires could burn for years. Samantha Hoffman watched deep black smoke billow over the Commonwealth and wondered how deep the twisted tunnels of Institute ran. One of many questions she would never have answers to, she supposed. She sighed and leaned heavy on the rickety guard rail keeping from tumbling off the edge of the Mass Fusion building. Her head hurt; her limbs were heavy. More than ever before she felt the fifty-three years she now knew she wasn’t.

  
Behind her came the click of a lighter, followed by the smell smoke mixing with stale nicotine. Without looking she said, “I don’t understand how you smoke those without any lungs, Nick.”  
  
“Can’t I say I totally understand it myself,” came the reply. Fabric rustled as Nick Valentine pocketed his lighter and settled on the rail beside her. “How are you holding up, Sam?”  
  
Samantha looked out over the horizon while she turned the question in her mind. Laughter erupted behind her – Railroad agents at something Deacon said or did or didn’t do. In the noise was the high pitched giggle of a young boy who had been, never was, and always would be her son.  
  
“Badly,” she said eventually. “But that’s nothing new.”  
  
“You want to talk about it?”  
  
“I do not.” Samantha glanced at Nick, who watched her with dull glowing eyes. Synthetic, but no more so than her own. Smoke – white and grey – crawled out his damaged face and neck. She wondered if he might argue, but he only nodded before looking back out over the destruction they’d wrought.  
  
Another burst of laughter almost made Samantha turn around. She would talk eventually, she knew. Things would change. Before her lay the ruins of the Institute, and buried in it was a child she never had and a life that never belonged to her. Soon she would have to face the future behind her.  
  
But for now she wanted to mourn.  
  
“He wanted a real family, before he died. That’s the only reason I can think to build us,” she said suddenly, softly, to herself. Behind her the young boy giggled again.  
  
Nick made a noncommittal noise. “Did he get one?”  
  
Samantha didn’t answer. She didn’t know. What he got, she thought, was a synthetic woman with the memories of a mother who may have loved him, a synthetic boy living a life he never got. He got two not-people who could never forget him, even if they did not mourn him. Perhaps he thought that was just as good.  
  
Samantha took one last lingering look over the dark smoke-covered Commonwealth, the fires she couldn’t see. She reached out and gave Nick’s metal hand a quick squeeze. Then she turned around.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I never know how to tag these things and I hate it. Shout out to the one word prompt tables on the kink meme for helping me ease myself into posting, but it's going here too because I crave attention.


End file.
